Twitter Inc Lags Facebook Inc On Content Shared

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has always been compared to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) for various reasons. However, both companies differ by most metrics, says a report from Quartz.

Facebook outpaces Twitter on many fronts

The differences became more apparent when Twitter filed its IPO documents last year. If we compare the last five years in the existence of both companies, we can see that Facebook is way ahead of Twitter on every relevant front, like quarterly revenue, monthly active users, and average revenue per user. A recent report from the GSM Association, an organization for mobile operators, gave another metric it calls content shared, which highlights the obvious difference between Twitter and Facebook.

As per this metric, the amount of content shared by Facebook users per day is far more than the number of tweets made by Twitter users. This also implies that the per-user content contribution for Twitter is much lower than that of Facebook.

Why such a difference?

There may be many reasons for this vast diversity, of those one primary reason could be that Twitter is used mainly to follow, while Facebook is used more to share. Twitter is aware of this reason and also is OK with it. Last month, Twitter’s boss of revenue, Adam Bain, told CNBC, “It’s actually something we’re happy to support. If anything we need to make it clear that you can use Twitter without tweeting.”

Despite the differences, it is believed that Twitter needs a Facebook-like approach to become like its rival. It is not that the micro-blogging site is not trying; it’s just that it needs a Facebook-like focus. Last month, Twitter made a move to focus on medium-sized business with new results-based advertising rates, a step that Facebook took long before.

Adam Levy of Fool.com said he believes that management at Twitter is not fully exploiting the differences in ad price structure. Levy believes that the company could use this to connect businesses with customers. Facebook is liked more by small businesses, as the social networking company offers a lot of flexibility and options to users. On the other hand, the micro-blogging site offers fewer spaces to advertisers and a lesser option for images.